Wisconsin native, conservative critic of everything.
"Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God." ---G K Chesterton
"The only objective of Liberty is Life" --G K Chesterton
"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions" --G K Chesterton
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling

Remember when Jimbo, our current Thief-in-Chief, said that he'd 'reduce State employment by 25%'?

As it turns out, he damn near did it. Too bad that he meant OVERALL Wisconsin employment, eh?

The DOR expects the state to reach overall pre-recession employment levels no sooner than 2013.

Oh, and Gummint employment? Still going up!

While other sectors of the economy were struggling in 2010, government continued its increase in employment. In 2009, the government sector of employment grew 0.7%. While the report predicts a 0.3% decline in 2010 due to “The weak fiscal position of state and local governments,” that has not produced a decline in employment so far. When faced with “possible teacher layoffs,” the federal government “bailed out” the states with $10 billion more in education funding.

So, even as other job areas of Wisconsin’s economy are shrinking, the Department of Workforce Development’s report from July shows government has added 5,900 jobs over last year.

And every one of them was critical to the functioning of the universe, no doubt.

There is a lot of foofoodust being pushed by 'the Republicans' to the effect that they are Saving the Taxpayer from Looting (by Democrats.)

And the very existence of the TEA Party tells you that some people know better--that is, that the Republicans are perfectly capable of craven pandering.

The House version of the Medicare prescription drug bill contained a provision backed by conservatives like former Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Pat Toomey – who is now the Republican nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania — that would have encouraged price competition between the traditional Medicare program and private plans starting in 2010.

But Republican leaders backed away from the House provision in order to win AARP’s backing and outmaneuver Democrats in the 2004 elections.

According to a March 2008 Congressional Research Service report, the 2003 Medicare reform hastened Medicare’s projected insolvency by making it happen in 2019 rather than 2026 under the then-current projections.

Yesterday I had a conversation with ANOTHER small business-owner who voiced the opinion that in the upcoming election we should schmeiss ALL the members of Congress.

This is not a new world: It is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like every one of the super states that preceded it, it has one iron rule:Logic is an enemy, and truth is a menace."

The author is best known for his short dramas. 20th Century, if it helps. Helped a lot of talented young actors and actresses.

Monday, August 30, 2010

A friend sent the wonderful news. Following expiry of the Bush tax cuts:

Those who will be hardest hit include the married, persons with children, persons who itemize and claim deductions for their child care expenses, persons who itemize and deduct their mortgage interest, persons with capital gains, those whose employers contribute to their education expenses, those repaying student loans, those saving in a qualified plan for their children's future education, those who transfer wealth intergenerationally before dying, and those dumb enough not to die on or before December 31, 2010.

So. That includes most everyone I know--and most of them earn FAR less than $250K/year.

Among those who follow such things, the disappearance of the Propers from the Mass is a vexing problem. In the ideal, the Propers are sung. The "gathering hymn" is simply NOT a substitute for them, no matter the marketing dollars (and consequently, the revenue dollars for missalette publishers) thrown around to frustrate the ideal.

From Hungary's Laszlo Dobszay come some thoughts for consideration.

Finding a resolution requires that we think over the situation carefully and formulate purposeful provisions leading to a true liturgical reform, one which extends also to the field of chant and includes both the musical material and the institutional background. Temporal constraints permit me to discuss only the first aspect, and I would like to do so in five theses.

Thesis 1 = The formula alius cantus aptus as a substitution for the Roman Gradual or theSimple Gradual must be abolished.

Thesis 2 = The highest degree of vocal participation in the Mass proper is of course chantingthe full proprium in its Gregorian tunes. ...

Thesis 3 = Although the most splendid sonic vesture of the proper texts is contained in theGraduale Romanum which “should be given pride of place in liturgical services,” it is also in conformity with church tradition that those texts may also resound in other worthy settings...

Thesis 4 = To churches or for Masses which are less well provided with good chanters, orare just beginning the process of introducing liturgical chant, permission might be given toreturn to the old “set principle,” which is to say using a collection of set pieces for an entire season, analogous to the Simple Gradual but based upon the traditional gradual...

Thesis 5 = The “regulated use of sets” is a step above the lowest level which could beadopted chiefly in weekday Masses or at Masses with a small congregation. It involves congregational recitation of the antiphons, with the verse read out by a lector or server (facing the altar and not the congregation). If these texts were recited recto tono on one pitch (or even with a soft organ accompaniment), worshippers might be reminded that the text is properly a chant.

Hilary White is a good reporter. She recently joined the staff of a Minnesota-based newspaper and offers a few interesting observations.

Q.) And how is the mood in Rome these days? I’m sure the sex scandals continue to cast long shadows but from your vantage point are there any indicators of better days ahead?

A) It depends on whose mood, particularly. There seems to be a sense of fin de siecle among the dinosaurs, the ones who staged and nurtured the Revolution since the 1950s. Among the younger crowd, those who are left, there is a sense of cautious optimism.

...Taking the longest possible view, the Church is at last passing out of a phase that started in the 1950s, and with the sex abuse cases, is simply reaping what it has sown. The result of effectively abandoning the traditional moral strictures in seminary formation is going to be moral chaos in the Church. Two and two still equal four. And now, even despite the attempts by the media to obscure this equation, many more people can see that, so much more clearly than before. The state of moral chaos, the doctrinal and liturgical disaster that is the Church in Belgium, Germany, Austria, France, Britain etc, is now being revealed for the evil that it has been all along.

...If the mainstream media has failed to make the connection between their favourite European bishops publicly opposing the Church on homosexuality and condoms and their protection of predatory homosexuals in the priesthood, the lesson is not being lost on those who see the situation with the eyes of the Faith. It will soon occur even to some MSM pundits that it has been the darlings of the “progressive” end of the Church, the poster-boys of the Revolution, who have been the most egregious culprits in covering up for their abusive priests and fellow bishops. The Weaklands, the Mahoneys, the Danneelses.

Indeed.

LOTS of other interesting stuff on the state of the Church in Europe (bad), Italian games-playing at the Vatican (The Godfather is a good parallel), and other interesting stuff.

Like, for example, the large and growing resistance among European health professionals to perform abortions.

Again, as with the Church, the tide is turning against the post-hippie dinosaurs, although, secure in their corner offices in Westminster and Brussels, they may not know it yet.

Heh. As to the European Union itself?

The EU is an invention of the Revolution, and as such, it is built on something that is not real. It is a manifestation of the post-1960s Fantasy world that has rejected the Real for a set of ideological fantasies. It is a tissue of ideologically inspired lies, a soap bubble that will burst sooner or later. And given the current crisis of the Euro, it’s looking more like sooner

...a long “train of abuses”, to borrow Jefferson’s phrase, preceded the launching of the First Crusade in 1096. Since its very inception, Islam had waged an unremitting war against Christianity. It conquered and subjugated centuries-old Christian societies in the Middle East and North Africa. After sweeping through France, the Muslim advance was finally checked by Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in 732. Following this, Muslim aggression against Christians continued in southern Italy, with the conquest of Sicily in 827. Resistance to these repeated acts of aggression was not characterized as a “crusade”, but simply necessary self-defense.

By the way, Islam never stopped its wars. Look at what's going on in sub-Saharan Africa. That's not "tribal" warfare, folks.

Over the next centuries, the Seljuq Turks, who converted to Islam, waged war against the Eastern Christian Byzantine Empire.

In 1095, the First Crusade was launched.

What was at stake was nothing less than the preservation of Christianity, and the civilization which had, even if imperfectly, sought to embody its teachings in the world. This was also evidenced by the increasingly hostility to Christians still living in the Levant

The article goes on to correct a number of misapprehensions AND to show that when the Crusaders did bad things (yes, they did), it was NOT condoned by Rome.

All in all, the reality is far different than the myth, whether perpetrated by the Muslims or by the Usual MSM Suspects.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

There are plenty of things a Republican House can do about Gummint spending.

Beginning here:

...the wind industry is pocketing subsidies that dwarf those garnered by the oil and gas sector. The federal government provides a production tax credit of $0.022 for each kilowatt-hour of electricity produced by wind. That amounts to $6.44 per million BTU of energy produced. [As a point of comparison, the wellhead price of natural gas is currently in the neighborhood of $4.00 per million BTU. - ed.] In 2008, however, the EIA reported subsidies to oil and gas totaled $1.9 billion per year, or about $0.03 per million BTU of energy produced. Wind subsidies are more than 200 times as great as those given to oil and gas on the basis of per-unit-of-energy produced. --WSJ via RedState

Remember that wind-power simply doesn't provide anything NEAR the "rated" output because (surprise, surprise), the wind does not always blow.

Unlike the leeches who suck up the subsidies.

They ALWAYS blow. Or suck, depending on your point of view.

RedState goes on to highlight the lobbying expenditures of wind-blowers, which are quite impressive.

The Waukesha Freeman's Brookfield edition ran a story about the Zipperer District's candidates.

I don't know that I liked what I saw from either of them.

Paul Farrow is Margaret's son. He sees the economy and 'creating jobs' as priorities. He wants to decrease regulation burdens (YES!) and repeal the combined reporting tax enacted last year.

But now he gets into code-speak: he said "the reliance on the property tax is an unrealistic approach...[and that the State] should look at a more balanced approach while reducing Government spending." Actually, Paul, what a legislator SHOULD work towards is getting the State out of local education altogether. It's called "subsidiarity."

Moreover, don't you wish you had seen "reduce spending" long before you saw "balanced approach to revenues"? I do.

Farrow also wrote an incomprehensible response to a question about the ChooChoo: "...there's a significant discourse toward high-speed rail...and he is concerned the federal government isn't putting forth money to support the system after it's built."

Looks like he might hurt the family jewels if he slips off that straddle the wrong way.

Well.

Tom Schellinger is the other candidate.

He would "devise a plan to fund schools properly and achieve property tax relief" by [among other things] "consider[ing] merging some school districts to cut costs...and review benefits packages."

(In regards 'benefit packages,' it would be nice to see the approved minutes of the Waukesha County Board meeting of July 27th, where Mr. Schellinger voted on Ordinance 165-O-035. But the County Board did not see fit to publish them yet.)

He doesn't like unfunded mandates and rambled on about everything EXCEPT SPENDING.

Both candidates were clearly responding to a formatted set of questions.

Neither was impressive.

Worse, both gave answers vaguely reminiscent of the "Wisconsin Way" blather being pitched by WEAC, the Roadbuilders, Realtors, and Local/County Gummints lobbies. And if you think that "Wisconsin Way" people are in touch, then read this:

...most of us consistently report being willing to support current spending levels and even say we would support spending more in a number of areas which suggests that our problem with taxes isn’t so much about what we spend tax revenues on or even how much we spend. It’s about more basic issues like affordability and fairness and how efficiently government manages the tax dollars they collect from us.

Most of WHO? Teachers, RoadBuilders, Realtors, and Local/County Gummints?

P-Mac's column references the contempt smeared all over Ron Johnson by Our Elitist Snob Senator, who actually is an Oik. He's part of a large group of Oiks, which includes the MSM and most educators. (Read on. The term will be defined.)

...can anyone argue that a show of contempt is a winning political strategy? The question answers itself and implies that the contempt is genuine.

In more cerebral moments, the elitists of the left invoke a kind of Marxism Lite to explain away opinions and values that run counter to their own.

Taranto quotes Robert Reich:

It's called fear. When people are deeply anxious about holding on to their homes, their jobs, and their savings, they look for someone to blame. And all too often they find it in "the other"--in people who look or act differently, who come from foreign lands, who have what seem to be strange religions, who cross our borders illegally. . . .

...and Taranto points out the obvious: the one has nothing to do with the other. But in Elite Logic, random events or phenomena linked by passion-laden rhetoric to draw a meaningless conclusion is a Trump Card.

The liberal elites cannot comprehend common sense, and, incredibly, they think that's a virtue. After all, common sense is so common.

As it turns out, the Elite have their own deep, dark fear: oikophobia.

The British philosopher Roger Scruton has coined a term to describe this attitude: oikophobia. Xenophobia is fear of the alien; oikophobia is fear of the familiar: "the disposition, in any conflict, to side with 'them' against 'us', and the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably 'ours.' "

Feingold, the Oik!

Of course, Feingold is a Senatorial Oik. Far more vociferous and influential are the Oiks of the MSM--which is damn near every single member of that group.

...our oiks masquerade as--and may even believe themselves to be--superpatriots, more loyal to American principles than the vast majority of Americans, whom they denounce as "un-American" for feeling an attachment to their actual country as opposed to a collection of abstractions...

Which is why the Oiks are compelled to utterly destroy Sarah Palin, and why Our Oik, Feingold, has to destroy Johnson, and why our Junior Oik, Barrett, has to destroy Scott Walker. Palin, Walker, and Johnson (mutatis mutandis) are not just symbols of the Country Class--they are of it. Boise State? Mankato State? Non-degreed? Hunter? Fisherman? Housewife? Industrialist? Budget-cutter?

Other examples of Oik targets abound: Limbaugh, Beck, McCarthy, Cheney, Arapaio, Walker, and Sykes are on the list. And the greater the threat, the more personal the attacks--to the extent of attacking family members and personal histories.

Who's NOT on the list? Well, there are no Extreme Lefties, of course. But note the treatment given to John McCain, Mitch McConnell, Murkowski, and the Maine Babes (inter alia) by the Oiks. It is far less brutal, far less personal. It is, in fact, the Strange (New) Respect treatment.

Suspected Islamic militants have killed three American Christian aid workers who were helping victims of Pakistan’s worst floods in recent memory, a well-informed source in the Pakistani military told BosNewsLife Saturday, August 28.

Dallas congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson awarded thousands of dollars in college scholarships to four relatives and her aide’s children...

Apparently NONE of the grantees were eligible because they lived outside her district. More important, these funds were NOT to be awarded to relatives/friends of a Congressman.

But to prove the old adage that "When you're in a hole, STOP DIGGING!" is good advice, this harebrained crook then opened her yap and drooled forth with this:

Initially, she said, “I recognized the names when I saw them. And I knew that they had a need just like any other kid that would apply for one.” Had there been more “very worthy applicants in my district,” she added, “then I probably wouldn’t have given it” to the relatives.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Can a person be charged with resisting arrest while observing a traffic stop from his or her own front porch?

["Yes"], District Court Judge Beth Dixon agreed. Because Gibson did not at first comply when the officer told her and others to go inside, the judge found Gibson guilty of resisting, delaying or obstructing an officer.

Well, there IS an answer to the Reasonable Man's question about that arrest and conviction. And you'll find it at the link.

The Ruling Class bunch showed up for a Corn-A-Holing demonstration dog-and-pony routine.

(Can't be a corn-a-holing demonstration without a Wisconsin driver in the BOHICA position. Sorry, I forgot. May I have another, sir??)

Badger State Ethanol played host to Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin and key staff members from Senator Herb Kohl’s and Senator Russ Feingold’s offices this past week. Baldwin and the staff members were invited to Badger State Ethanol as part of a Congressional outreach program by ethanol advocacy organization Growth Energy.

Friday, August 27, 2010

...during the Southern Hemisphere's recent winter, unusually low temperatures in part of the country's tropical region hit freshwater species hard, killing an estimated 6 million fish and thousands of alligators, turtles and river dolphins.

That was Bolivia.

Yah, I know, weather is not climate.

But my WE Energy bill had a nice surprise: the average high/low temps in the last billing month were EXACTLY the same as the average high/low temps last year same month.

And WE doesn't use thermometers placed next to air-conditioning vents.

The Obama Administration is considering using the vast power of the federal government to ban the sale of certain types of ammunition. This administrative ban would increase cost for hunters and fisherman dramatically. If implemented, this ban would go against the will of the American people.

...She, half of a pair of women who were blessed with, I’d estimate, about 60 years of wisdom and prudence each, was checking the news online on her phone. She reads, angrily, to her companion (I paraphrase, as I didn’t have a notebook):

“ ‘Senate Republican leader: I take Obama at his word he’s Christian.’”

She paused a second, then:

“D-----bag!”

(Since I have no "gentle" readers, I won't have to help you understand the term. P-Mac, laden with innocent-soul readers, did so.)

What Patrick observed was something I have heard and seen, too. In decidedly a-political gatherings, it doesn't take long at all to overhear someone--usually over the age of 30--making remarks about Our President which are FAR more incendiary than what Pat heard.

The mood is not good, at all. It is, in fact, surly. It is dangerous.

And if the November elections don't produce immediate and highly visible remedies, it may be far worse than merely calling names.

Schundler was let go by Christie this morning following the release of a video by the federal Department of Education that contradicted Schundler’s assertion that he provided federal Race to the Top grant application reviewers with correct state aid numbers after an error in the documents was revealed.

“I was extremely disappointed to learn that the videotape of the Race to the Top presentation was not consistent with the information provided to me by the New Jersey Department of Education and which I then conveyed to the people of New Jersey. As a result, I ordered an end to Bret Schundler’s service as New Jersey’s Education Commissioner and as a member of my administration,” Christie said in a statement issued at 12:30 p.m. today.

Walker has canned "demoted" the Director of the Mental Health complex and has moved to can the diddly-shrink who oversaw two horrible incidents.

Under the avalanche of commentary on the new translation of the Ordinary Form of the Mass, just approved by the Vatican, I poke my head above the erudite criticisms, to speak as a man whose entire priesthood has been in parishes. I am not a liturgist and, from the parochial perspective of a pastor who has studied worship much less than he has done it, I risk the tendency of many like me who probably unfairly think that liturgists are the ecclesiastical equivalent of lepidopterists. [Yes, I had to look it up. He's right.]

A pastor is too busy leading people in worship to attend workshops on how to lead people in worship, and his duties in the confessional prevent him from attending seminars on how to hear confessions.

Here's a genuine true fact:

One thing is certain to a pastor: the only parishioners fighting the old battles are old themselves, their felt banners frayed and their guitar strings broken, while a young battalion is rising, with no animus against the atrophied adolescence of their parents, and only eager to engage a real spiritual combat in a culture of death.

And a warning to the dilettantes--both "righty" and "lefty":

Our Lord warned enough about the experts of his day who loved long tassels, and who swore by the gold of the temple rather than the temple, to stay us from placing too much hope in ritual and texts to save lives. Neglect of the aesthetics of worship is not remedied by the worship of aesthetics. A pastor will sometimes observe an over-reaction to the corruption of the Liturgy, so that ritual becomes theatre and Andrei Rubleyev yields to Aubrey Beardsley. Any group or religious community that is too deliberate about external form sows in itself the seeds of decadence.

[I could name names, but it wouldn't be nice.]

So how to celebrate Mass?

Liturgy should be chantable, reverent, and expressive of the highest culture we know, without self-consciousness.

And more:

A genius of the Latin rite has been its virile precision, even bluntness. Contrast this with the unsettled grammar of “alternative opening prayers” in the original books from ICEL (the International Commission on English in the Liturgy), whose poesie sounds like Teilhard on steroids.

They were much wordier than the Latin collects or their English equivalents, and gave the impression of having been composed by fragile personalities who had not had a happy early home life. So too, the Prayers of the Faithful cloyingly pursued “themes” usually inspired by an undisciplined concern for air pollution and third world debt.

I think there should be few options in the Liturgy, and no attempt to be “creative,” for that is God’s particular talent.

There, he aced Cdl. Ratzinger, who said the same thing but took 1000 words or so to say it.

And he provides elegaic Newman...

“Clad in his sacerdotal vestments, [the priest] sinks what is individual in himself altogether, and is but the representative of Him from whom he derives his commission. His words, his tones, his actions, his presence, lose their personality; one bishop, one priest, is like another; they all chant the same notes, and observe the same genuflections, as they give one peace and one blessing, as they offer one and the same sacrifice....

As the number of residents statewide increased between 2000 and 2010, Milwaukee’s population decreased by 16,500 people, according to estimates from the latest U.S. Census.

The city of Milwaukee is estimated to have 580,500 people, a 2.8 percent drop from 2000’s population numbers. The statewide population grew by an estimated 332,285 people. The 5.7 million people statewide is a 6.2 percent increase over 2000’s census.

Wisconsin has been denied a waiver to ignore a new federal law meant to protect the voting rights of deployed troops and other Americans overseas.

...The law requires ballots be sent to certain voters at least 45 days before an election. That placed states like Wisconsin with late August or September primaries in a jam because the deadline for distributing November ballots is Sept. 18 - too late for them to certify the results of the primary.

Another scheme foiled. The primary election date could have been moved up by the (D) legislature a long time ago.

Back to bussing thousands of Chicago residents to Milwaukee, Beloit, Kenosha, and Madistan, eh?

I've been talking about the spending since mid-2007. NOW Mort gets it? Maybe he reads this blog. It would be good for him to have done so.

...There is another instinctive conclusion among the American people. It is that the national deficit, and the debts we have accumulated, are of critical political importance. On the national debt, the money the government has spent without the tax revenues to pay for it has produced mind-numbing numbers so large as to be disconnected from reality. Zeros from here to infinity. The sums are hard to describe; it is hard to describe an elephant, but you know one when you see one. The public knows that, shuffle the numbers as you may, the level of debt is unsustainable.

Who could be surprised since millions of voters have discovered that for themselves? As one realizes the morning after the night before, there is an unavoidable penalty for excess. It is unnerving to wake up and learn that you have a mortgage on your home that exceeds the value of the property. Or, and too often both, you have a credit card line that you cannot repay and the issuer has you on the rack for ever bigger compound interest on the debt. The lesson has been well and truly learned that debt catches up with you. Millions understand that they are just going to have to find a way to live within their means—and then still eke out some savings to pay down debt.

Reportedly, Zuckerman's a (D).

Obama must know that if he doesn't address this, he will be the president who drove us toward a debt crisis. And so too must Congress, for both have now participated in the most fiscally irresponsible government in American history.

The Commerce Department says the nation's gross domestic product—the broadest measure of the economy's output—grew at a 1.6 percent annual rate in the April-to-June period. That's down from an initial estimate of 2.4 percent last month and much slower than the first quarter's 3.7 percent pace

The silent protest at Monday night’s Miss Universe Pageant in Las Vegas was invisible to nearly everyone — except Venezuelans. On her final catwalk, the ranking Miss Universe, Stefania Fernandez, suddenly whipped out a Venezuelan flag in a patriotic but protocol-breaking gesture.

...Her flag had seven stars, significant because Chavez had arbitrarily added an eighth, making any use of a difficult-to-find seven-star banner an act of defiance. Fernandez’s countrymen went wild with joy on bulletin boards and Facebook...

While the IBD story compares Ms. Fernandez' flag display to US citizens waving our flag after 9/11, it's even more apt to compare her act to waving the Gadsden here.

In the debate with Neumann, Walker referred to BadgerCare as a 'temporary program.' The union-shill reporter carefully stripped the phrase from its context and manufactured a story.

Too bad he then (WAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY down the page) related the actualities.

Republican Gov. Tommy G. Thompson created BadgerCare in 1997 as he overhauled welfare. It was meant to ensure low-income workers and their families would have health care. As a member of the Assembly at the time, Walker voted for it. The hope was that most people would eventually move into jobs that would provide health care,......

So while BadgerCare, the PROGRAM, is permanent, the UTILIZATION of BadgerCare was meant to be temporary--a helping hand.

Governor Jim Doyle today announced $595,000 in support for Ace Ethanol to expand its operations in Stanley and retain 40 jobs.

...Ace Ethanol, LLC will receive $595,000 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds through the State Energy Program. The funds will support the company’s $850,000 project to expand and equip its operations

But what happens when Scott Walker ends ethanol requirements in Wisconsin?

Gee. This is just shocking!!
In the stimulus bill that passed Congress, $86 billion was earmarked for “green initiatives,” something that was heavily lobbied for by Doerr. The Department of Energy (DOE) was then put in charge of choosing which companies to award grants to.

However, close examination of those companies who have so far received grants reveals that KPCB venture companies – businesses in which Doerr has a vested financial interest – have received a large portion of the DOE’s fund.

[KPCB, or Kleiner Perkins, is where AlGore hangs out when he's not getting a massage and where Colin Powell is an "in-house" adviser.]

Fisker Automotive is one example

...along with another Corn-A-Hole-YOU! outfit in Massachusetts, and a biofuel outfit which is, so far, a money-pit.

Relativism is now the civil religion and public philosophy of the West. Again, the arguments made for this viewpoint can seem persuasive. Given the pluralism of the modern world, it might seem to make sense that society should want to affirm that no one individual or group has a monopoly on truth; that what one person considers to be good and desirable another may not; and that all cultures and religions should be respected as equally valid.

In practice, however, we see that without a belief in fixed moral principles and transcendent truths, our political institutions and language become instruments in the service of a new barbarism. In the name of tolerance we come to tolerate the cruelest intolerance; respect for other cultures comes to dictate disparagement of our own; the teaching of "live and let live" justifies the strong living at the expense of the weak. --quoted at Pro Ecclesia

Chaput suggests that Totalitarianism is imminent.

Well, that's not a big step from the Statism spouted by the Ruling Class.

There will be no housing recovery, I wrote in “Demographics and Depression.” Since 1970, the population has grown by fifty percent, from 200 to 300 million, yet the country has the same number of two-parent families with children then as now—just 25 million. In 1973, the United States had roughly the same number of family homes (those with three or more bedrooms) as the number of families. By 2005, the number of family homes had doubled even though the number of two-parent families with children had stayed the same.

Consumer spending would not return, I argued, because after asset values went down $15 trillion reduction, Americans had started saving as much as they could. If everyone is saving and no one is spending the economy will shut down. The problem, I wrote, “is not that aging baby boomers need to save. The problem is that the families with children who need to spend never were formed in sufficient numbers to sustain growth.”

By the way, Belling seems to have forgotten about demographics in the interim. The other day, he was ranting about how "interest rates are going UP!!!!!!!" for home mortgages.

Not if you take the linked essay seriously, they won't.

The Baby Boomers are saving like crazy AND reducing debt as fast as possible. Those savings are going into T-bonds and banks; note the Bloomberg article I cited this morning about banks now (effectively) CHARGING you to hold your savings.

Since Boomers have most of the money--such as it is--and they are stuffing it into savings instruments, rates will NOT rise; at least not markedly, nor quickly.

Goldman is not the only one to notice demographics. The WSJ and Goldman Sachs both noticed, too.

What is The Fair Tax? First, a replacement for all Federal Taxation on incomes. Corporate, personal, FICA, Medicare, Unemployment. All Federal Taxes other than tariffs and imposts are replaced with a national sales tax.

Lots more, all food for thought, at the link. And he makes it clear that it will kill off "outsourcing."

...Joseph Henrich of the University of British Columbia took the Ultimatum Game into the Peruvian Amazon as part of his work on understanding human co-operation in the mid-1990s and found that the Machiguenga considered the idea of offering half your money downright weird — and rejecting an insultingly low offer even weirder.

Michael Bennet, D-Colo,at a town hall meeting in Greeley last Saturday, Aug 21 said we had nothing to show for the debt incurred by the stimulus package and other expenditures calling the recession the worst since the Great Depression. [...]

Regarding spending during his time in office he said, “We have managed to acquire $13 trillion of debt on our balance sheet” and, “in my view we have nothing to show for it.” Speaking of the debt, he said our debt almost equals the economy. Regarding the current job situation, Bennet said the situation has been dire for over a decade saying, “We have created no net new jobs in the United States since 1998” which were the last two years of the Clinton administration.

Don't talk to me about Bush. I denounced his spending, too, although he did have a (D) Congress to deal with in his last 2 years.

Barrett drew applause Wednesday when he spoke out in support of the research at a biotech conference in Middleton.

...Barrett says some of the best scientists in the world are doing that research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which he called a "moral service" to the country.

As we mentioned, ESCR has exactly ZERO, nada, zip to show in the "results" column--except a lot of dead babies.

Evidently Tommy forgot Moral Theo's first principle: you may NEVER do wrong to effect a right. But then, it seems that Tommy Milk-Carton has forgotten a lot of principles on the way to securing elected office.

It's the usual BS from the banks and FRB: "....run on the [weakest link] banks, ...consumer confidence...." most of which translates to "I want to keep my bonus and my job, too, no matter how stupid I was."

Not only did you hand them a $Bazillion or so in "rescue" funds--now you pay them to keep your savings account, too.

Average interest on savings, checking, money-market and certificate of deposit accounts fell to 0.99 percent in July, the first decline below 1 percent in a decade, according to researcher Market Rates Insight. Banks also have been raising fees and adding new ones, most recently in response to the financial-services overhaul bill that became law July 21.

The article mentions Chase. Not only is a mattress a better place to keep your money; the mattress is not totally incompetent.

...the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Lisa Jackson, who was responsible for banning bear hunting in New Jersey, is now considering a petition by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) – a leading anti-hunting organization – to ban all traditional ammunition under the Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976, a law in which Congress expressly exempted ammunition. If the EPA approves the petition, the result will be a total ban on all ammunition containing lead-core components, including hunting and target-shooting rounds. The EPA must decide to accept or reject this petition by November 1, 2010, the day before the midterm elections.

And, in sum, there is really NO substitute for lead which is not either 1) ineffective or 2) horrifically expensive.

It should not surprise anyone that the wackos petitioned EPA instead of Fish/Wildlife--where this actually belongs. Jackson is extremely sympathetic (and extreme, too.) USFWS might not be so easy to persuade.

The link above has the full story AND it has links for the EPA "comment" page on the proposal, as well as Ms. Jackson's email address.

You could say that ESCR is the “most promising” line of research, in the sense that the researchers involved have definitely been doing the most promising. They’ve been promising great things, and to date delivering nothing.

The Department of Homeland Security is systematically reviewing thousands of pending immigration cases and moving to dismiss those filed against suspected illegal immigrants who have no serious criminal records, according to several sources familiar with the efforts.

So that's the bad news.

Culling the immigration court system dockets of noncriminals ...has stunned local immigration attorneys, who have reported coming to court anticipating clients’ deportations only to learn that the government was dismissing their cases.

And THAT'S the bad news, if you're an immigration lawyer. No mo' fees!

Ticker ran some numbers. Just as important, he excerpted a report on WHAT and HOW to teach the little darlings.

Direct Instruction (DI), devised by Siegfried Engelmann in the early 1960's as he taught his own children, is defined by the researcher James Baumann: "The teacher, in a face to face, reasonably formal manner, tells, shows, models, demonstrates and teaches the skill to be learned. The key word is teacher, for it is the teacher who is in command."

Longitudinally studied, it produces the best results, when combined with:

Models that emphasized basic skills succeeded better than other models in helping children gain these skills. Groups of children in Basic Skills models performed significantly better on measures of academic skills than did non-Follow Through groups. Abt evaluators concluded that a Basic Skills model would be preferable if an educator was concerned with teaching skills such as spelling, math computation, language, and word knowledge. Note that the Abt report refers to the superiority of a model type. However, it is not inclusion in a category that leads to educational effectiveness, but the particular instructional materials and procedures used.

Then he ran the numbers, and (yup) came up with ~$4,200.00/year--and the teachers would be well-paid--that is, in the the second-from-the-top quintile of household incomes in the US.

Throw in another $800.00/kid for higher-end supplies (chem, bio, physics stuff) and an extracurricular or two, and it's $5K/kid/year.

It's not only the Assurant people, the Gulf oil workers, and the auto-dealer employees. Nor is it, precisely, ONLY Obama. It's the Party of Government.

Going forward doesn't look so hot. Regulations, taxes, uncertainty. and "stuck on stupid" with Keynesian Do-Loop inanity are all mentioned.

Unless government policies are altered, he predicted, "the next big thing will not be invented here. Jobs will not be created here."

Thus spake Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel.

The U.S. legal environment has become so hostile to business, Otellini said, that there is likely to be "an inevitable erosion and shift of wealth, much like we're seeing today in Europe--this is the bitter truth."

Not long ago, Otellini said, "our research centers were without peer. No country was more attractive for start-up capital... We seemed a generation ahead of the rest of the world in information technology. That simply is no longer the case."

We've mentioned regulatory costs. Otellini defines them:

"I can tell you definitively that it costs $1 billion more per factory for me to build, equip, and operate a semiconductor manufacturing facility in the United States," Otellini said. ...Ninety percent of that additional cost of a $4 billion factory is not labor but the cost to comply with taxes and regulations that other nations don't impose

So glad you brought up "taxes."

"If our tax rate approached that of the rest of the world, corporations would have an incentive to invest here," Otellini said. But instead, it's the second highest in the industrialized world, making the United States a less attractive place to invest--and create jobs--than places in Europe and Asia that are "clamoring" for Intel's business.

By the way, it was not ONLY Obama. It was Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, Carter, and Roosevelt, not to mention the Professional Pandering Class which occupies the Capitol in DC and damn near every State in the Union.

HHS released a study which effectively calls into question the "need" for sex-ed.

For example, the report found that “adolescents and parents generally oppose pre-marital sex,” adding that adolescents have slightly more permissive views than their parents.The report found that approximately 70 percent of parents were morally opposed to their teens having premarital sex, while just over 60 percent of teens agreed that only married persons should have sex.(Not exactly a shocker.)

The report also indicated that parental and social attitudes toward sex and abstinence were far more influential than classroom education, even when abstinence-based. Conservative attitudes of parents and peers toward sexual intercourse, reported the researchers, were broadly associated with an adolescent’s choice to abstain from sexual intercourse.

While sex education, including abstinence-based, increased levels of communication about sex between adolescents and their parents, the study found that such communication made no measurable difference on adolescent’s sexual attitudes.

Don't be expecting the Publick Screwels to close up their sex-ed shops soon, however.

The Assurant 130-person layoff will not be the last. (How's that "Recovery Summer" going for you, folks??)

Compliance with a key provision of the new health reform law could cost the nation’s health insurers far more than most analysts expected, according to a new study by Weiss Ratings, the nation’s only provider of independent insurance company ratings.

Weiss found that companies already complying in 2009 had average net profit margins of only 0.7%, while those not yet complying had average net margins of 6.3%, or nine times more.

Martin D. Weiss, president of Weiss Ratings, commented: “As long as their investment incomes hold up, most large insurers should be able to handle the increased medical expenses expected under the new health care reform. If investment income declines significantly, however, few insurers will be able to comply without debilitating impacts to their bottom line, and ultimately, their financial stability as well.”

As you recall, ObamaCare requires that insurers pay >80% of premiums for claims (meaning that their admin-expense must be 20% or less of premium income.)

In effect, this regulation will be more kind to large insurers than to small ones--and of course, it will force many insurers to: 1) jack up rates to fatten underwriting profits (to establish a reserve against investment losses OR less-than-budgeted investment income); and/or 2) get rid of employees who are not significant contributors to profits.

It's easy to see what is happening here. The objective is to eliminate health-insurers, but it can't happen too quickly. So rather than nuke the entire sector in one shot, Obama will just bleed it to death over a period of years.

If you’re wondering why Jan Schakowsky can get away with having her and her husband being tied up in a dirty bank deal without censure by the House of Representatives, while Rep. Maxine Waters is currently facing ethics charges for her and her husband’s involvement with OneUnited, the answer’s easy: Schakowsky is white, and is thus simply fundamentally real to Democratic leadership in a way that no African-American Member of Congress could hope to be to them. It should not be a surprise that House ethics investigations are being allowed to continue only against those legislators whose seats are considered locked-in by the Democrats anyway.

That's not the first time that observation has been made, nor will it be the last.

Suppose that you have a homeowner whose house is underwater. That mortgage has been bought up by Wall Street investment banks at may be 30, 40, 50 cents on the dollar. The government now says that if the holder takes 10 percent off the mortgage, the government will guarantee 90 percent of the mortgage. So they may have bought a $100,000 mortgage for $50,000. If the mortgage holder agrees to write-off $10,000, the government will guarantee the mortgage for $90,000. You, the taxpayer, has just given these Wall Street investment firms $40,000!

The state is steaming ahead with establishing a federal high-speed rail line, projecting it will commit $300 million this year - far more than the roughly $50 million in spending previously announced. The project's price tag isn't changing. Instead, Gov. Jim Doyle's administration is hustling to move forward with the planned passenger rail line between Milwaukee and Madison...

Even the Barrett campaign can't bring itself to endorse this.

Clearly, the Fraud-in-Chief is planning on retirement far, far, far away from Wisconsin.

Monday, August 23, 2010

A U.S. district court issued a preliminary injunction on Monday stopping federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research

...Judge Royce Lamberth granted the injunction after finding the lawsuit would likely succeed because the guidelines violated law banning the use of federal funds to destroy human embryos.

"(Embryonic stem cell) research is clearly research in which an embryo is destroyed," Lamberth wrote in a 15-page ruling. The Obama administration could appeal his decision or try to rewrite the guidelines to comply with U.S. law.

Or Obama could simply ignore the ruling--as he did in Louisiana--and do whatever he damn well pleases.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House.

...Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?

...Gentlemen may cry, "Peace! Peace!" -- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun!

Over here, you find The Deluded. In the combox is someone who considers himself an "economic expert", who states that the terrific "jobs" situation since Porkulus proves beyond a doubt that Teh Won is really the messiah.

The JS is running a series of articles about the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex. (Link is to Part 3; links for Parts 1 & 2 are on the page.)

And there is a laundry-list of problems; among them: the building is not compliant with "current best practices," there are staffing shortages, and there is a perennial money shortage.

When one reads the articles at one sitting, you get the distinct impression that the authors are valiantly resisting pinning the blame on Scott Walker--which their AFSCME sources would LOVE to see. However, the "It's All Walker's Fault" theme, subdued as it is, still emerges faintly from the stories.

But IS it "all Walker's fault"?

In a word, no. Let's take the three items I mentioned above.

1) The current building is ~30 years old and was built prior to Walker taking office. Meantime, psychiatric "standards of treatment" changed. As a result, Milwaukee County should either extensively remodel the existing building (expensive!!), build an entirely new one (expensive!!) or acquire and remodel another facility (expensive!!). The articles make it clear that the County Board simply will not agree with Walker on a resolution--and hint that the Board also cannot agree with ITSELF on a resolution, either.

2) Every hospital in the State of Wisconsin is looking for RN's. So "staffing shortages" are not exactly unique to the Complex. But it is also clear that the Union is doing most of the screeching about "shortages," (what's new??). It's not mentioned, but I'll bet that Union Rules have something to do with it--not to mention a shortage of RN's that is endemic. To their credit, the authors mention that one "shortage" was caused by a Union Member abandoning their post for "Union Business."

3) The State of Wisconsin under Jim Doyle, (a fraud and a snake) have cut back on funding to the County's Medicaid program, which directly impacts everything.

When Walker becomes the Governor, he will have the solution within his grasp: transfer the Complex to the State of Wisconsin. Let the Union bargain with the State; and if that doesn't result in a better agreement, simply close the Complex and move the patients to State facilities elsewhere.